Read, favourite. ( )

This continuation of the Orphan's tales very much continues in the same vein as the first. Stories within stories, sheer, unbridled imagination... a modern 1001 Nights with a very sophisticated and original sequencing of mythologies, from nagas, selkies, winged skeletons, and ever-present hunger, of leopards, broken unicorns, women pared away to replacement parts, and most of all...

Of sorrow.

This novel takes a more liberal superstructure approach over the first, continuing the tales of the Orphan in such a way that even the stories have stories and those have deeper stories still, and the recursion slowly rises back up until we can breathe in the ink under the eyelids once more, gasping, shuddering in relief.


There is nothing more that I can say that the book itself can't say better. It is lush, gorgeous, lyrical, and it rewards careful readers. Careful re-reading. Valente is something of a master storyteller and these two works are dense and epic. Amazing. ( )

Reread ( )

The second part of the Orphan's Tales did put me off a little by going into some pretty gruesome fairy tale territory, but the ending swirled down in a lovely way with the layers of stories shifting through each other. If you like old fairy tales, this is worth the effort. ( )

This is the second book in The Orphan’s Tales duology. We hear more stories from the mysterious girl’s face but as she struggles to read the stories she can’t see, the young prince takes over in the telling of these stories.

This book is just as lush and amazing as the first book. The story does come together in a fairly cohesive way in the end. The writing here is just spectacular and so creative. Valente paints amazing pictures with her words and I loved reading it.

I struggled a bit with frustration as we were led into stories within a story within a story; sometimes I would forget where we started or just wanted to get to back to reading the story we left quicker. I was also a bit disappointed when I figured out about 25% thought the book how everything tied together. I was kind of hoping I was wrong but I wasn’t. This took a bit of the wonder of the last half of this book away for me.

Overall this is a phenomenal book, way above quality of most fantasy books out there. It takes time to savor and isn’t the easiest read, but the storytelling in here is absolutely excellent. If you don’t mind some ambiguity and love storytelling and folklore I would highly recommend this series to you. ( )